Learning piece movement

Hello, in the previous post, I talked about the chessboard. Now I will elaborate on the pieces' movements! We will start off with the most important piece in chess... the King. Although he might be moving way less squares, compared to other pieces, he is the most important one, because if we lose him, we lose the game! Also remember that only one piece can be on a square at a time.

The king moves 1 square at a time in all directions just like that:

Pretty simple right? Now I will show you the way he 'eats' (takes pieces off the board)... Well, there is not much to show, he 'eats', or ( more correctly) captures pieces, the same way he moves. He just takes the piece off the chessboard and is placed on its (now vacant) square. It should also be noted that no piece can capture an ally! ( a piece of its own color). Now for example look at this picture

In this position the black king on e3 has the option of capturing the piece (it is a Knight) on e4 or he could just move to some other square, namely, d4, d3, d2, e3, e2, f4, f3 and f2. lets say he decided to capture the knight. Then the white piece will be taken off the board and the black king would take its place:

Got how the king moves? Great... Now an other important rule... the king is prohibited to move to a square that it is attacked by the enemy... For example in the final position of the previous example(3rd picture), it is white's turn to move. He could either move the pawn or the king. For the lesson's sake, let's ignore the pawn for now. The king can normally move to 8 different squares... But in this situation the white king can only move to 7! to f7, f6, g7, g6, g5, h7, h6 and h5. You might think that I forgot f5. Well, I actually did not! the black king is attacking the f5 square, thus the white king is not able to move there. Similarly, if black were to move, he would not be able to move to f5 either, because the white king is attacking it. In addition, when an enemy piece attacks the king, then the king has to immediately find a safe square, or a piece has to block the attack to the king, or the attacking piece has to be captured when none of these are possible, then the game is over and the side that couldn't protect its king loses and the opposing wins.

Now, let's move on to the Rook. It can move in a straight line ( horizontally and vertically), forwards and backwards:

 Very easy! But what if a piece stands on a rook's way?

If it is a friendly piece (a piece that is the same color) then the rook cannot capture it. In this case, the white bishop on g4 is a friendly piece and thus cannot be captured by the white rook on d4. But if it is an enemy piece, in this instance, the pawn on d6, then the rook on d4 can capture it, meaning, taking it off the chessboard and placing the rook on its square, just like the king (the same rule applies to all pieces). It should also be noted that the rook cannot jump over other pieces, whether they are enemy pieces or friendly ones, so the rook does not have access to h4, because the white bishop is blocking it as it does not have access to the d7 and d8 squares, as the black pawn is obstructing the rook's view. The way the rook captures is pretty simple... just as the last example, the rook captures in the same way it moves.

Let's move on to the Bishop! It can only move diagonally, forwards and backwards:

You might have noticed that the bishop can only land on squares that are the same color as the square it started on... you are right, just as I showed you in the learning the chessboard post, in the diagonals part. It captures just in the same way it moves. When there are pieces in the way it acts just like the rook. Friendly piece= cannot capture.

Enemy piece= can capture

It also cannot jump over pieces, just like the rook.

Next up we have the Queen! The most powerful piece.

She can move in the same way a rook and a bishop can:

The same capturing rules apply, can only capture enemy pieces and does so in the way it moves and the same rules about another piece getting in her way apply, she cannot jump over it.

2 pieces are left and they are the most difficult ones to learn, so be aware!

Now, we are going to examine the Knight's movement!
He moves forwards and backwards in an L shape:

Can you see the L that is formed when it moves? Remember it moves 2 forwards and 1 the left/right. It will take time to get used to the knight's movement. Now we will talk about what happens when a piece is in the way... he ignores it... he is the only piece that can jump over pieces, both friendly and unfriendly!!! Even if there are 2 pieces I its way, he can ignore them and get right into the landing square. NOTE that it can only capture a piece that is on its landing square!!! I will give you an example:

In this position, the white knight on e5 (I know it does not have letters nor numbers but pretend that it does) can capture the black bishop on c4 (or it can move to d3, f3, g4, g6, f7, d7 and c6) . It cannot capture the rook on d5! as it is not on its landing squares. The knight also cannot capture friendly pieces (what a surprise?!?).

Last but not least we have the pawn! I warn you it is the most perplexed piece!

The pawn can only move forwards, vertically, one square at a time (except when it is on its starting square, which we will see which this is in a later post). It cannot jump over other pieces. It is the only piece that does not capture the way it moves! It moves vertically, but it captures diagonally (only forwards yet again)!:

In this instance, the white pawn on d5 can capture the black queen on c6, or capture the black knight on e5 or move to d6. The pawn can only capture one square diagonally!

I hope you enjoyed this post. Please comment or continue viewing my next posts, because I put a lot of work into these,  this one took me about 2h+, but it was worth it :)

In the next post, I am going to cover 3 special moves concerning the pawn, the king and the rook, so be alert, because probably tomorrow, it will be ready.